


The Soul Mate Hunter

by VenusGuided



Series: The Soul Mate AU [1]
Category: Silent Trilogy - Sues Cummings
Genre: M/M, Soul Mate AU, but it's mostly a relatively happy au, child abuse cws cos uh they all have bad parents still, oh but also mikey/luci is uh. there. and a thing to be warned about.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 04:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7786174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenusGuided/pseuds/VenusGuided
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lao uses his magic to help people find their soul mates -- or the next best thing, anyway. It pays well, it doesn't keep him away from school, it keeps him believing in love in its many forms. Then Lao gets a client he thinks might be his soul mate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Soul Mate Hunter

After they ran away from their respective homes to live together in the furthest continent from Europe and Japan they could, Nova, Crow and Lao were stuck with the issue of how to get money.

“We’re all underage illegal immigrants, what chance do we have?” Nova groaned. “We just — teleported over here!”

“I know, it was awesome,” Crow grinned. “Can’t believe I pulled it off.”

Nova glared at him. “Why do I let myself get caught up in your bullshit and not think, Math?”

“I dunno, my bullshit is usually pretty sexy,” Crow replied. “But maybe it was actually something to do with how Pixie’s psycho-bitch mother kept trying to kill him.”

“I’m sorry,” Lao mumbled.

Nova rolled his eyes, wrapping an arm around Lao’s shoulders reassuringly. “Or maybe it was Leon killing your parents, Math?”

“Or basically everything the Jalanises did to you ever,” Crow retorted. “It’s all shit. This is the best thing we could’ve done. And we’re gonna be fine.”

“I know I don’t have any money,” Nova grumbled. “What about you?”

“Swiped Leon’s wallet,” Crow replied. “The number of credit cards that fuckwit has is amazing, really.”

“You can’t use credit cards, they’ll trace them,” Nova groaned.

Crow’s grin turned sheepish. “Then I have, I dunno, fifty quid?”

Nova swore. Lao stepped away before he got too hand-gesture-y.

“Hey, hey, it’s cool!” Crow insisted. “I mean, I can teleport, you can turn stuff invisible, so —”

“I am _not_ using my powers like that!” Nova cried.

“Why not?”

“It’s immoral? Horrible? Evil?”

“Depends on who we steal from, doesn’t it?”

“That’s — that’s not the point, Mathis!”

Lao was pretty used to Nova and Crow arguing until they figured out a solution, so he started looking around. He’d never left Japan before. Even the air in Australia felt different. Maybe it had to do with the seasonal differences, relative levels of pollution or simply being free from his biological family. Or maybe it was all the PDA. Not just couples holding hands or flat-out kissing in public, but parents holding kid’s hands, or playing with them as they walked, carrying them on their shoulders, talking to them… Or maybe that was just how much Lao’s mother sucked?

Whatever, she didn’t matter any more.

Lao had always liked watching people. Being able to see souls gave him as much insight as he’d ever need if he got curious, but he usually didn’t bother. He liked seeing the looks on their faces as they interacted, and he liked looking at their wrists. Most people covered the names Destiny wrote there, but some wore them proudly. Both were interesting to see.

Nova covered his, but that wasn’t a surprise. Nova always wore long sleeves and jackets, no matter the season, complaining it was all too cold after Greece. Lao had seen it before, though; a name written in Greek that Nova always got flustered about. Crow was the other extreme in multiple ways. He hated covering his arms because he spent so long lifting weights, and found wrist-cuffs ridiculous, so he let his show due to pure indifference. Whoever ‘Gabriel’ was, Crow didn’t care.

And of course, Lao never had a choice in the matter. He was three when his mother had the name on his wrist tattooed over with the mark of the minathia.

“This is your only destiny,” she told him all the damn time.

Lao thought that if it was really his destiny, Destiny would have decided to mark him with that. But he would never say that to his mother, or anybody else for that matter. Instead, he’d often stare at the thick black lines of the kite-shaped tattoo and the purple filling it in, as though his wishing could peel back the inked layers of skin until he could see the name of his soul mate.

So if he did a little vicarious people watching…

Lao’s attention was drawn to a trio of teenagers hovering in the street for no reason beyond being teenagers. Being 12, he was kind of intimidated by teenagers, at the same time being intrigued. Two of them held hands, while the third looked uncomfortable and… angry? Lao’s animakinesis confirmed, angry. Angry due to jealousy. Jealousy because she kept wishing and wishing the ‘Catherine’ on her wrist meant _her_ , but angry because she never said anything and now look at Cath being so lovey-dovey with _Robert_ , who was supposed to be her _best friend_ …

Not particularly surprised, Lao glanced over at the soul of Catherine. He watched the doubt swirling through her, even though he’d thought she’d looked perfectly happy before. Wasn’t it so stupid of her, to date Robert so Jaclyn would be jealous? But what was she supposed to do, assume Jaclyn was a lesbian too? With no evidence? Shove her wrist in Jaclyn’s face, like that meant anything?

Robert thought the girls were fighting over him, and was wondering how he could turn it into a three-way. Of course.

Lao blinked until the magic left his vision. Well, he thought, teenagers are stupid.

“Aniki, hyauki,” Lao said, shoving his bag at Nova.

“Yeah, whatever Pixie — hey, where’re you going?!”

Lao walked up to the teenagers. He tried not to worry about never having spoken English outside of lessons, even if he was _really good_ in lessons. As it turned out, it wasn’t much of a problem; he came out with a British accent very much like Crow’s as he said, “Excuse me.”

The teenagers stared at him in that ‘why does the world even’ kind of way.

“What,” Catherine sneered.

“Very edgy,” Lao dryly remarked. He pointed at her. “You, Catherine, your soul mate’s Jaclyn, same for you Jaclyn, yes Jaclyn, Catherine’s bisexual. Check your wrists, they match, they mean each other.”

“What,” Robert said, horrified.

“Sorry, but nobody wants to have sex with you,” Lao said. “Stop planning threesomes.”

“ _What_ ,” Robert repeated, at least twice as horrified.

Lao turned, flicking his hair because it felt appropriately dramatic, as he walked away to the gasps of Catherine and Jaclyn examining each other’s wrists.

“THANK YOU, WEIRD KID!” Jaclyn shouted after him.

“What the hell was that?” Nova demanded, pulling Lao towards him.

“They were being stupid and avoiding true love, it was annoying me,” Lao said.

Nova stared. “What you just did, matching them — you were for real?”

Lao nodded, frowning. “Why would I lie about something like that?”

“You can see who Destiny picked for people!?” Crow cried. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner, Pixers?”

Nova tugged his left sleeve further down nervously.

“I can’t see who _Destiny_ picked, but I could tell with those two from their souls,” Lao replied. “I knew because of their memories.”

“Close enough,” Crow said. “D’ya have any idea how much money soul mate hunters make?”

“Not much, I’d guess?” Nova said. “Since it’s all a scam?”

Crow smirked. “They don’t have to know that.”

“Don’t encourage Pixie to be an immoral fuck like you!”

“The circumstances are kinda desperate, Nova,” Crow retorted. “It’s not like he wouldn’t do his best — look at what he did within a few seconds of looking at those losers. Plus, it’s not like everybody ends up dating whoever Destiny put on their wrist. Sometimes it’s a destined enemy kinda soul mate, isn’t it? Or platonic.”

“He has a point,” Lao said quietly. “It’s just a person Destiny knows we need in our lives. So that’s no pressure, right? Because don’t we actually need everyone we meet in our lives at some point or another?”

Nova groaned. “Fine, whatever.”

“It’s only be for a while,” Crow said hastily. “Until we get proper jobs, or enough money, whichever happens first.”

Nova glared at him suspiciously. “Ya dunno how the economy works, do you?”

Crow shrugged. “Money’s money.”

“I’m stuck living with a stupid spoilt rich kid,” Nova groaned. “Why’s my life the fuckin’ worst?”

“Only for a little while longer!” Crow insisted.

It was incredibly rough for a year. Living between hotel rooms when they weren’t straight-up squatting, Lao struggling to have people believe that he could help them find their soul mates, Nova and Crow failing to find jobs because hey they were both under 16 with no actual legal papers to prove they were allowed to exist in the country. Crow kept talking about forging them, but that took money they kept failing to have because everything was so _expensive_. They had to pay for the rooms they stayed in, food, stuff to fix old clothes, new clothes when that stopped being an option, a phone to maintain so Lao’s wannabe clients could contact him, stuff that didn’t make them look poor and desperate when being scrutinised by people who were desperate to find their soul mate but not desperate enough to employ ‘grotty little urchins’ to do it, and had it always been so damn much money?

Their lucky break came in the form of a multi-millionaire with more money than sense. Somehow, the man had heard of Lao’s success rate, and somehow, he tracked Lao down while they were in Coles trying to figure out what the $20 they had would cover.

“I hear incredible things about you ability to track down soul mates,” the multi-millionaire said, right off the bat, not even bothering with ‘hello’ or ‘my name is Michael and I appear to believe I’m an angel’.

“Yeah, he’s the best there is,” Crow volunteered. His eyes were locked on the man’s glistening golden watch. “I’m his older brother, Mathis.” Crow always used his given name rather than his latest name when it sounded more professional, or perhaps when he wanted to hear people fumbling as they tried to mimic the French lilt he never pronounced it without. “Are you interested in finding your soul mate?”

“Would I be speaking to him if I weren’t?” Michael dismissively replied. “I’ll be dealing with you later.”

Crow looked pissed.

“I’m Lao,” he said, covering the pause. “It’s nice to meet you, Michael.”

“Oh, you do appear to have some connection with Destiny,” Michael said. “Well then. I’m eager to find my soul mate. He’s been rather elusive lately, you see. And I’ll pay you, hmm, let’s say, two million?”

Lao’s jaw dropped. “Are —” It seemed stupid to ask when he could see, in Michael’s _soul_ , that he was indeed serious. “I… I… thank you. I’ll do my best.”

Michael shrugged. “What does your best matter? Do it, you get the money. Don’t, you get nothing.”

“You’re not gonna bill him for wasted time or some fat-cat capitalist bullshit, are you?” Crow demanded.

Michael eyed Crow irritably. “Oh, you will annoy me endlessly, Mathis.” He looked down at Lao. “Come along then.”

“I’ll need at least one of my brothers to come,” Lao said. “I um — age protection thing?”

Michael pointed at Nova. “You. I’ve already had enough of Mathis for one day.”

“Is it my fault I don’t play by your capitalist rules, man?” Crow muttered irritably.

Lao relied on Nova to keep him steady and safe as they walked from the supermarket. There were a lot of layers to Michael’s soul, centuries of memories, and the more he looked the more the angel thing seemed legit. Michael had them hidden, but his wings were golden, and he had always admired how the feathers simultaneously matched and contrasted the rose-gold of his soul mate’s wings. Up until he’d ripped them off, of course, which had been very tragic. Still, he’d visited Luci in prison (Hell) any number of times, and it was plain rude that Luci kept breaking out when Michael forgot to lock the door again. Especially when Michael had such difficulty tracking him. Luci was a master of disguise.

Lao wasn’t entirely sure if he _should_ tell Michael where Luci was. But he knew. He could see the red thread binding them together, and he could see where it ended. It didn’t sound like Luci wanted to be found. It didn’t sound like Michael loved him in the right ways.

But then again, they needed money. Badly. And it was _so much_ money. And Luci was the literal _devil_.

But didn’t even the literal devil deserve a chance to avoid destiny? _Especially_ if his path bound him to an enemy who had _literally ripped his wings off_?

Lao wanted to ask Nova what to do. But he could see that Michael would understand, no matter what language Lao used.

It would be helpful if Lao could see Luci’s soul, could see what he wanted. It was too far to tell for sure, but not too far to walk. So he’d stall while they walked.

“This way,” he said softly, clinging to Nova’s arm as he started to walk.

As they walked, Lao felt it was perfectly within reason and professionalism to ask Michael, “If you know it’s Luci, and you know he wants to get away, why do you keep chasing him?”

“It isn’t me he’s trying to get away from,” Michael replied. His memories surged with bitter recollections of Luci arguing with… holy shit, God looked like a fratboy. “He loves me.”

“Maybe,” Lao said. “But maybe you could also be nicer about it.”

Michael stopped walking. Nova stopped too, so Lao stayed. “What do you mean?” Michael demanded. “Be nicer about him betraying and abandoning — what do you know, mortal?”

“Everything you know,” Lao replied. “And then what it’s like to be forced to abandon the only home you’ve ever known because of how people try to use and control you. It’s not fun. It’s not easy. And it’s not selfish.”

Michael was staring at him in confusion, but as he did, memories of Luci’s increasingly cold, dismissive and angry responses in Hell came to the surface of his soul.

“And maybe you shouldn’t take your anger out on him when must’ve already hurt him more than you know by taking his wings,” Lao added.

Michael shook his head. But he was remembering how Luci screamed, and how Luci shouted whenever he touched his back.

“But I don’t know,” Lao admitted. “All I know is what you know, for now. Maybe he liked it.”

They kept walking, Nova muttering where things were to Lao as they went. Around the point he said, “There’s a park and there’s a lotta people around,” Lao could see Luci’s soul only a few metres away.

Luci didn’t immediately hide at the sight of Michael. Actually, he seemed equal parts excited and disappointed. It was a game to him, Lao realised. A game to see how far Michael would chase him. Sure, Luci wanted to destroy mortals and climb their corpses (metaphorically) to Heaven and punch God in the balls, but playing with Mikey was fun in the meantime. His plans were long-term, and he was so easily bored. And wasn’t it lucky that that pretty dainisan princess couldn’t read divine souls?

Well. Lao definitely could read divine souls. He hadn’t known they’d existed forty minutes earlier, but he could do it. And he could see every aspect of Luci’s plan to watch him get closer to angels, then lose faith in them, then end up marrying him, Luci, like Lao was a complete idiot who wouldn’t see that there are some things you just don’t do and one of them is marry the _literal devil_.

So, Lao didn’t like Luci. But he also didn’t want to leave him with someone who hurt him. And he could see that everything he’d said was true, at the same time that Luci felt a vague amusement at everything Michael did. Luci loved Michael, and he was falling more and more in love with the idea of destroying Michael back.

Not good, Lao thought.

“Michael,” he said quietly. “If I tell you who he is, will you promise me something?”

Michael was irritated. “What would that be, mortal? More money?”

Lao shook his head. “Please apologise. I know you mean it, even if you’re trying to convince yourself everything you do is for the greater good.” He felt tears in his eyes. He wiped them away. “And, and please, love him properly. Care for him. Look after him. Stop trying to hate him. Stop taunting him. Love him properly, or don’t do it at all. Please.”

“Fine,” Michael said. He was thinking there was no way the creepy mortal kid could know if he meant it or not. But Lao knew he meant it more than he was accepting. “Where is he?”

Lao closed his eyes, hoping he wouldn’t regret it, and pointed.

“Luci,” Michael growled.

“Mikey,” Luci hissed.

Lao opened his eyes, seeing the world, not their souls. They were approach each other, hissing each other’s names with increasing volume and intensity.

“Luci!” Michael shouted, right in his face.

“Mikey!” Luci shouted back.

Then they started making out.

“Fucking hell,” Nova groaned, looking away.

“I miss you when I can’t find you,” Michael said passionately.

“I could find you instead if you’d let me back in Heaven,” Luci replied.

“Luci,” Michael cooed.

“Mikey,” Luci purred.

Lao wondered if he’d managed to completely misunderstand everything he’d seen. Michael gave him the money, the exact amount promised in a cheque, swept Luci up bridal-style and walked away.

“What the actual fuck,” Nova said.

“I thought I knew, but I don’t,” Lao replied.

The cheque didn’t bounce.

From there, word spread quickly, and it became easier. Especially once they had an actual house, where people could come to them. It was in one of the nicer suburbs in Hobart, Crow said, but that probably meant it had a good view of the beach and the mountain.

On the day they moved in, their elderly neighbour was shouting at what looked like his grandson (but context told them was his son) for kissing a boy who was apparently named Jon Stone. Shouting loudly, following him across the front-yard, as his son leant against a large tree and kept glancing nervously up at the tree house while his father shouted slurs.

“That’s fucked up,” Crow said, frowning. “Oh well.” He went inside.

“Pixie, c’mon,” Nova said. “Check on them later.”

Lao shook his head and continued to watch. Nova sighed, and stayed by his side.

“I don’t understand, Arez! A boy, Arez?!” the father shouted. “How can you be a _faggot dainisa_?”

“I dunno why they’re mutual exclusive!” Arez shouted. “You’re not even a dainisa! Shut up! You’re not even my real dad!”

His father slapped him across the face.

“What the fucking hell’re you doing?!” Nova shouted.

Arez’s father looked at them in surprise. Arez’s hair was so long and dark, it covered his face completely. Lao ran to the fence, Nova behind him, but Arez’s father was already returning to his house.

“If you’re gonna shout at me about it, shout at me for my horrible tastes in men!” Arez screamed after him. “I mean, Jon the Whiny Bitch?! That’s the only gross bit!”

Arez’s father went inside.

“Are you okay?” Nova asked.

“Fuck off!” Arez shouted at him. He was rubbing at his cheek. His skin was a pale olive, but the bruising was still already showing.

“Fine,” Nova said. He tried to drag Lao after him, but Lao wouldn’t move. So he went inside alone.

Arez stayed under the tree, breathing heavily, fists clenched, and teeth bared. Lao watched him for a moment. He hadn’t ever been around people his own age before, and he wasn’t sure how to talk, or act. Especially after seeing their father hit them. He’d been attacked by his mother often enough to know what to offer, though. An out.

“Hey,” Lao called to him.

Arez turned to him, eyes wild. “What! Who’re you! What do you want!”

It was like he’d forgotten anything had happened before.

Lao leant on the fence. “I’m Lao. My brothers and I just moved in next door.”

Arez’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t _see_ any moving trucks, or even a car, or even a taxi. So how’re you doing that, huh?”

“We’re dainisa too,” Lao replied. “One of my brothers can teleport. And we don’t have much stuff.”

“You _sound_ American.”

Lao frowned. “What’s that got to do with having stuff?”

Arez shook his head in disbelief. Lao was definitely missing something.

“Anyway, I just wanted to say, your dad’s an asshole and he’s wrong,” Lao said. “And if you wanna get away from him, you can always come over whenever. We won’t mind.”

Arez looked so suspicious. It made Lao’s heart hurt to imagine what the humans must’ve done to make him like that. He wondered what it would take to undo.

“Just keep it in mind,” Lao suggested. “See ya.”

They heard a lot of arguments from their neighbours. When Lao started going to school, he was in the same class as Arez. But Arez glared at the sight of him and shouted about not being a damsel who needed saving, your face is both girly and bitchy, so on, so on, while pretending he hadn’t obviously cut his hair to hang over his left eye and hide the bruising. His sister Athena apologised for him, someone called Jon informed him that everybody hated Arez, and Lao felt sorry for him. Not that his pity helped.

They settled into a routine, school during the week, soul mate work on the weekend. Lao would often notice Arez watching them, glowering from his tree house.

“He sleeps in there,” Nova remarked one day, frowning.

“Does he?” Lao asked.

Nova nodded. “’S almost winter. He’s gonna freeze to death.”

“In Hobart?”

Nova sighed. “It’ll be unpleasant, okay?”

Lao looked up at how Arez was watching Nova. He felt a stab of jealousy, but, oh well. If Arez wasn’t interested in him, he’d let him go. Especially if it meant he’d be happy with Nova. And Nova would make him happy.

“Go talk to him,” Lao suggested. “I think he’s shy.”

Nova snorted. “That why he got kicked out of assembly last week for calling the principal a fascist?”

Lao giggled. “Well. Shy when it’s important.”

Nova’s eyes didn’t move from Arez’s tree house. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Within two days, Arez was in their living room watching _Star Wars_ with Nova and trying to teach him the Elvish language from _Lord of the Rings_. Lao hadn’t bothered to check their souls, and he’d never seen the name on Arez’s wrist (or deciphered the one on Nova’s), but he liked to think he knew soul mates when he saw them.

But Arez was thirteen and Nova was fifteen. It’d take them a while to figure it out for themselves. Lao didn’t want to intervene and rush them in case he ruined it. He liked Arez, for his energy and spirit and potential, and it’d be kinda funny when Arez’s asshole father realised his son was shacking up with the neighbour.

So Lao sat on the couch next to them, asked to see Arez’s nails and offered him a manicure.

Arez eyed him suspiciously for a moment before saying, “Okay. But no stupid colours.”

Lao picked out a colour he had specifically because it reminded him of Nova’s eyes. Arez brightened at it.

“That’s my favourite,” he said. “That’s the best colour. It’s like the ocean, but better.”

Lao watched the embarrassment mixed with excitement cross Nova’s face and wondered how long it’d be.

Soon, Lao was matching up enough people that their names started blurring from his memory. But not the looks on their faces when they realised (as it always happened) that their soul mate had been there all along never faded. Lao couldn’t help envying it. Especially as he got older, more used to Australia, and Australians. He started dating when he was fourteen but everything went horribly wrong all the time. Maybe it was because they never had his name on their wrists. Maybe it was because Lao fell too deeply in love too quickly, like Arez said. Maybe it was because he gave too much too easily, like Crow said. Or maybe it was because he was too young and taking everything too seriously, like Nova said.

Lao tried just enjoying dating, and sex, and all that, but he couldn’t seem to. Not even after he’d turned eighteen. Maybe it was because Nova was completely in love with Arez and Crow had started complaining about some pushy bastard named Gabriel following him around claiming it was his destiny to work for him. Or maybe he’d watched one too many romantic comedies with Luna, Jon and Candy.

Either way, after he’d ended up dating _Kris Jeehl_ of all horrible things, Lao was pretty tired of searching. He could find other people’s soul mates (or close enough) at the drop of a hat, but his own was always beyond reach. Sometimes he wondered if it was someone he’d left behind in Japan.

Envy didn’t affect his ability to find people’s soul mates for them, at least. And Lao found himself enjoying it more with a better understanding of what dating was like. It was a vicious weekly cycle of spending time at school pining after anything even vaguely datable Monday to Friday, then spending Saturday and Sunday looking at the real deal, and moving on to a new flame the next week.

Being called a slut was funny, at least. Because Crow started shouting about how it’d always been his dream to be the school slut.

“Yet, not a damn person wanted you,” Nova remarked.

“Lots of people wanted me!” Crow cried. “But we can’t all be pretty princesses!”

“Yeah, that Gabriel guy sure wants you.”

“IT’S NOT LIKE THAT WITH FAGBRIEL! IT’S EMPLOYMENT SOUL MATES! NOT — AND, WAIT, IT’S NOT EVEN THAT, FUCK OFF!”

Lao wondered what kind of soul mate the arch-angel Gabriel would turn out to be. He knew that was who it was, because apparently Luci had taken a liking to him, and enjoyed appearing in his bedroom to gossip when Lao was trying to sleep.

“He’s too much of a prissy suck-up to even know how to get laid,” Luci had said. “Your poor brother. I regret writing that name. Because I do it, you know.”

“Do you,” Lao said. Luci lied all the time.

“Yes, absolutely,” Luci said, starting to braid Lao’s hair. “Can you imagine anything more evil than taunting mortals with names of loves they may never find?”

Everybody always assumed soul mate meant love. Lao did, too. What if the name on his wrist had been Luci’s, simply because Destiny had looked at him and decided ‘this kid needs sleepless nights while Lucifer rants about hating angels’? It was entirely possible.

Still, Lao was too concerned about it to check Crow’s soul for any signs of what was really going on. Plus, invasion of privacy, all that.

Of course, two weeks after his eighteen birthday, when Lao was sitting cross-legged at the mahogany desk in his ‘office’, Nova led two humans into the room with an unimpressed, “The Coopers. Or whatever.” before skulking off. And something immediately felt different about the air.

“Jason Cooper,” the very bald fifty-year-old white man in an over-pressed suit said, holding a hand out to Lao. “I understand you’re the best in the business, despite your age.”

“That’s what they tell me,” Lao said, shaking his hand. He looked at the other one. His own age, but a lot taller (obviously), with ridiculously pale white skin, lanky brown hair that hung to mid-neck, golden brown eyes, ridiculously sharp cheekbones that could rival Arez’s. “And this is?”

“My son, Kez.” Jason Cooper glared at him. “Kez.”

Kez gave a strained smile. “Hi. Lao, is it?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Lao replied. “Lao Yamaguchi. You want me to find a soul mate?”

“That’s why we’re here,” Jason Cooper said with a mock-laugh. “The boy’s getting some odd ideas. Never been the same since his mother left.”

Lao nodded. “Um. Okay.” He looked at Kez. Kez looked irritated beyond belief. “Um. Kez?”

Kez looked at him. The look in his eyes softened, and Lao’s heart started beating too fast. “Yeah?”

“Can.” Lao swallowed a deep breath. Calm, calm, calm. You see hot guys all the time. Be professional. “Can I see your wrist?”

Kez stepped towards the desk, rolled back his sleeve, undid a bracelet and held it out to Lao. Lao glanced at the name on the human’s wrist.

Two simple kanji spell out the name closest to Lao’s heart, so close not even Nova and Crow knew it.

Lao drew in another deep breath.

“You can’t read this, can you?” Lao asked Kez.

Kez opened his mouth to reply, but his father beat him to it.

“Can’t _you_ read it?” Jason Cooper sneered.

Lao gritted his teeth. “Yes. But I’d like to hear what your son has to say on the matter, considering it’s his life.”

Jason Cooper’s sneer became a scowl as he muttered something about poor customer service.

“I think it’s Torao,” Kez said.

Hearing that name on those lips sent shivers down Lao’s spine. He hated it twice as much as he kinda liked it.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Lao replied. And even though it’s misgendering himself and forcing the bullshit concept of gender on anybody else named Torao, Lao was eager enough to see Jason Cooper freak out that he added, “It’s a male Japanese name.”

The flood of shock, horror and rage that decimates Jason Cooper’s face is totally worth it.

“Yeah,” Lao said. “Your son’s definitely gay.”

“You — how dare — MY SON IS NOT HOMOSEXUALLY INCLINED!”

“Aren’t I,” Kez deadpanned.

“NO!” Mr Cooper roared. “YOU ARE IN NO WAY! IT’S A PHASE!”

As totally hilarious as Jason Cooper’s face was with his eyes bulging like that, Lao knew it was awful to hear a parent hating an aspect of your existence. At the same time, he knew it wasn’t actually his place to say things _for_ Kez. Guilt started to seep in over the adrenaline of messing with white cishet losers, and so Lao glanced at Kez while Mr Cooper wasn’t looking and mouthed ‘Sorry’.

Kez shrugged and grinned.

“Come on Kez, we’re going,” Mr Cooper said, already walking out the door.

Kez turned to him. “Aren’t you gonna pay Lao?”

“For what? Unprofessionalism and poor service?” Mr Cooper snapped. “Get over here _right now_. We’re not wasting another second with this nonsense.”

“Dad —”

“NOW, KEZ.”

“It’s okay,” Lao said. “I’d prefer serious customers anyway.” He glanced through the layers of Jason Cooper’s soul until he saw a memory of the name on his own wrist. He saw years of pain swirling around a memory of a horrific face split in a stomach-turning grin that made Jason Cooper giddy and Lao nauseous. “Your father is very upset that his own soul mate, Tony Abbott, will never notice him.”

Jason Cooper turned purple, gave a strangled scream and stormed off.

“…seriously?” Kez asked.

Lao nodded.

Kez laughed and started walking away. “Thanks, dude. Sorry about him.”

Lao shrugged and gestured for Kez to keep walking.

Kez smiled, nodded and left.

The disappointment in his eyes hurt Lao only because he was disappointed it was Kez.

When Nova came home, Lao hesitated around a dozen questions he couldn’t think how to articulate. He felt gross down to his core. Nova glanced at him suspiciously after he gave a delayed ‘welcome home’ then hung around the living room, pacing behind the couch while Nova read.

“Ya gonna tell me what happened?” Nova asked after five minutes.

“I’m trying,” Lao insisted.

“That bad, huh?”

“Yes!” Lao cried, throwing his arms out. “I don’t even — I dunno what was written on mine — but I feel so — why?!”

Nova flipped a page. “A boy then.”

“It could be a girl!” Lao cried. “Or neither!”

“You never get angry unless it’s a boy,” Nova replied.

Lao groaned loudly, dropping his arms and stomping his feet.

Crow appeared in the room, grinning. “Is that Pixie Drama Time I hear?”

“Yup,” Nova replied. “Kids these days, huh?”

“You’re only three years older than me, shut up!” Lao cried.

Crow stretched out on the couch next to Nova. He kicked the book from Nova’s hands. “Pay attention, I can tell this one’s gonna be good.”

“I hate you both,” Lao said. “I hate you both _so much_.”

Crow blew him a kiss.

“Okay, okay, sorry,” Nova said. He twisted to glance over the back of the couch at Lao. “What’s happened?”

Lao ran his hands through his hair. He dropped them by this side again. He tried to pace, but he was too tense to move, so he just admitted, “I think I met my soul mate.”

That made them take it more seriously.

“Really?” Crow asked, eyes wide.

Lao nodded.

“How d’ya know?” Nova asked. “I mean, cos of ya —” He gestured at his own wrist, holding his sleeve over the name there.

“I don’t,” Lao admitted. “But he has my name. The name I was given when I was born, I mean.”

Crow whistled, impressed.

“And you don’t think it’s another person with that name?”

Lao rubbed his left eye. “It’s, it’s not a common name. Unless you’re like, a hundred.”

“Kurapika,” Crow guessed.

“No,” Lao sighed. “And I know, it just means he’s destined to be in my life in some way, it doesn’t mean I have to like him or we’re gonna be — anything, but, but…” Lao groaned in agony. “He’s white!”

Nova flinched. Crow started laughing.

“His dad’s an asshole too,” Lao muttered. “He wouldn’t even pay me, just because he can’t get over how gay his son is. _And_ he’s a politician whose soul mate is _Tony Abbott_!”

Crow stopped laughing. “That’s — urgh.”

Lao nodded, growling in frustration. “But I feel, I feel like —”

“Like you’ve gotta be with him,” Nova supplied.

Lao nodded. He wondered if Nova felt that about Arez. They always seemed to enjoy being together so much, even if Nova was too hesitant around the age gap to go for it and Arez was too overwhelmed by his own capacity for love.

“That’s dumb,” Crow said. “Just cos everybody makes such a big deal about the soul mate bullshit doesn’t mean you’ve gotta —”

“No, it’s not that,” Lao interrupted. “I… I kinda liked him, I think? But maybe it _is_ that. Maybe it’s just cos it’s built up as destiny, and y’know, if it’s destiny it should just happen, shouldn’t it? I should feel like I’ve gotta, go find him, or… or anything…”

“Yup,” Nova agreed. “If it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen. Whatever it is.”

Crow rolled his eyes, muttering, “So it _is_ exactly what I said.”

Lao flopped against the back of the couch, groaning loudly, and decided, fuck it. He needed to know. “Is this how you felt with Arez?” he asked Nova.

“Nah,” Nova replied. “But you’ve got no chill, so.”

“There’s something seriously wrong with a person who has chronic anxiety telling me I have no chill,” Lao said.

“Different kinds of chill, loser.”

“He’s saying you’re thirsty as hell,” Crow explained.

Lao’s jaw dropped. “What?!”

Nova inclined his head thoughtfully. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“I can’t believe you!” Lao cried.

Crow patted Lao patronisingly on the head. “It’s true.”

“I hate you both,” Lao informed them, slumping until he was lying on the ground.

*

The next day, Kez came back.

“Hey,” he said, walking towards Lao’s desk. “Uh. I wanted to pay you.”

“Does your daddy know you’re doing that?” Lao asked dryly.

“’Course not,” Kez replied. “I wanted to apologise, too.”

“Aren’t you gonna say something about how his actions are your fault?”

Kez frowned. “What’s that gotta do with it? He was an asshole to you and you didn’t deserve it, so I’m sorry.”

Lao smiled before he even realised it was coming. “Um. Well. I guess I wasn’t entirely honest with you yesterday because your father was here.”

“Yeah? And?”

Lao fought back a nervous laugh. “What, um. What do you think soul mates are supposed to be?”

Kez shrugged. “Someone who’s meant to be in your life, for whatever part of Destiny’s plan. That’s all.”

It’s the answer everybody gives when they’re put on the spot, the answer that sounds most acceptable and hollow, but Lao believed it from Kez.

“Yeah, probably,” Lao replied. “Can I look at your soul?”

“Uh, I don’t think I can just, pull it out.”

Lao gestured at his eyes. “Magic.”

“I’ll say,” Kez said.

Lao bit his lip to keep from laughing. “Are you trying to flirt with me?”

Kez blushed and looked away. “If it’s going badly, definitely not.”

“It’s going cheesily, but you can keep trying if you want,” Lao replied. “Seriously, can I look at your soul?”

“Okay,” Kez said. Then: “…will it hurt?”

“You won’t feel a thing.”

“Okay then. Yeah. Sure.”

Lao let magic consume his vision until all he could see were the layers of Kez’s soul. Kez was worried about whatever Lao would find, overwhelmed by how cute he thought Lao was, and hoping he hadn’t made a bad impression by merit of being his father’s son. He was hungry, his favourite foods were all bland and easy to cook, and he was kind of apprehensively hoping Lao would be able to find his soul mate (even though he didn’t think that made sense, Destiny made things happen when Destiny needed them to happen) because he didn’t actually like any of his friends or family when he was honest with himself and was tired of coming away from every social interaction feeling hollow. At the same time, he felt that he _needed_ other people, and the only clue Destiny gave him to that was the name on his wrist. Lao saw long hours of studying Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, because Kez didn’t know which one it was (he thought it was Japanese with a lot of certainty) and didn’t have anything better to do anyway. He was worried he was going insane from loneliness.

Surprised, Lao refocused his gaze to find Kez’s red string. Every soul had a red string, like the red string Destiny tied in the Japanese myths to connect soul mates so they’d never be too far apart. Lao knew what he actually saw wasn’t that red string; it was how his magic manifested itself so he could look and easily understand. Semiotics, Crow called it, because Crow was a wanker. Either way, every soul Lao had ever looked at was connected to another. It wasn’t anything to do with Destiny’s will — it was the bonds a soul natural developed, prioritised, and Lao could easily see the string binding a soul to that of the person it valued most.

Kez Cooper didn’t have a red string.

Which only meant Kez Cooper didn’t love anybody in his life enough for that connection to exist. Sad, and interesting. Lao found he wasn’t surprised; the glimpses of memories he saw told of a very dull, pretentious life surrounded by every stereotype of the hollowness of rich life. The tedious, self-important classmates, the awkward family dinners once a month at best that always ended early, the despised distant family members, that kind of thing. It’s the kind of life Lao imagined he’d’ve had if he hadn’t ever met Crow and Nova.

Lao blinks several times until he can see the physical plane and Kez’s worried face.

“Well?” he asked.

Lao smiled reassuringly. “I think I know who it is,” he said. “But I don’t want to say anything too pre-emptively.”

“Right,” Kez said. “So, you can like, tell what Destiny wants from people, just by looking at their souls?”

“I’ll be honest with you if you promise not to tell,” Lao replied.

“Uh. Okay?”

Lao beckoned Kez closer and quietly explained, “I can’t actually tell anything about people’s Destined paths by looking at their souls. But I can tell the kinda person they are, and the kinda people they value. So I can make pretty good guesses that lead people towards meeting their soul mates faster.” He smiled wryly. “And I do have a pretty good relationship with the deity who claims to write the names, I guess.”

“Oh,” Kez said. He didn’t sound disappointed, or even surprised. “Then, is this your destiny?”

Lao shook his head. “But I don’t see any reason to live my life how She wants as opposed to how I want.”

“Because She’ll find a way to trick you into doing what She wants anyway?”

Lao shrugged. “I like making people happy.”

“Is that all you need? To be happy?”

Lao shrugged. “It’s not about me, is it?”

“I don’t really care about my soul mate,” Kez said. “It’ll happen if it’s meant to happen, yeah? So I don’t care.”

“I know you care a lot,” Lao interrupted. “I know you learnt Japanese for them.”

Kez flushed. “I… that was different. That was, a long time ago.”

“We’re still young,” Lao said. “And if you’re gonna pay me, why not pay me for the whole job?”

Kez frowned. “You just admitted it’s bullshit.”

Lao sighed heavily. “I’ve never flirted with a client before. I’m no good at it.”

 _That_ made Kez’s face go bright red.

Lao giggled. “Come on. Aren’t you curious?”

“About what?” Kez asked. “The soul mate, or dating you?”

“The soul mate,” Lao replied. “I tried flirting with a client. It didn’t go well, I got into soft-existentialism and ruined it. So maybe I shouldn’t date a client.”

Kez stared at him. “Are you always like this?”

Lao shook his head. “Normally I’m very professional. I just — I’m curious because of what I saw in your soul. And I’m kinda thinking of this as an excuse to get to know you. And I really do think I know who your soul mate is, but I wanna be completely sure, and I was confused by your soul, so, so, I wanna… get to know you, and…” Had he ever been this tongue-tied before? He was a princess, for fuck’s sake.

“Okay,” Kez said.

Lao climbed over his desk. He looked up at Kez and thought he could get used to eyes like those peering down at him.

Dangerous thinking, Lao reminded himself. Don’t fall in love too quickly. Don’t give too much. Don’t be thirsty as fuck. It could be wrong. And Kez could be anything but the love of his life.

He tore his eyes away and said, “Let’s, let’s get looking.”

“Sure,” Kez said.

Lao held the door open for him. Kez didn’t go on a rant about emasculation like Kris would’ve. But that was a really low bar.

“Don’t be thirsty as hell,” Lao whispered to himself in Dainisan.

He let the door shut behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> how do you even say "don't be thirsty as hell" in dainisan? nobody knows. nobody seems to care, either.
> 
> this was also a gift for someone, but we're Never Ever Getting Back Together so i might ditch it. especially since i'm a grinch who hates soul mates x: but i might continue it if enough ppl want me to cos what i do love is lao/kez


End file.
